‘We’re so lucky, it’s all been worth it’ (Picture: Collect/PA Real Life)
‘You just have to have faith,’ said Lisa Ashworth, 52.
The mum-of-three spent 10 years trying to conceive, and often wondered if she’d ever become a mum.
But after five rounds of IVF, she finally got her dream, and gave birth to triplets, aged 41.
Lisa began trying for a baby when she was 30, during her first marriage, but she soon found out she had unexplained infertility.
Meeting her second husband six years later, Lisa still wanted a child, but realised that conceiving naturally ‘wasn’t meant to be’.
Although around 80% of couples fall pregnant within the first year of trying, around one in seven have difficulties conceiving.
It took Lisa 10 years to finally conceive (Picture: Collect/PA Real Life)
According to the NHS, couples who have been trying to conceive for more than three years without success only have a 25% chance of getting pregnant in the fourth year.
Lisa and her husband, Rob, 52, decided to try IVF — costing £25,000 in total — but by the fourth round, having experienced one miscarriage and three unsuccessful attempts, Lisa nearly gave up.
‘You feel like you’re walking under a cloud the whole time and you wear a mask a lot of the time, pretending everything is fine,’ Lisa said.
‘But deep down, you’re just carrying this burden and desperation of trying to get pregnant and not being able to do it… and it’s devastating.’
Lisa and Rob decided to do a fifth round, which was going to be their last, when they finally got the news they’d spent so long hoping for.
‘We were lying in bed and I did the test, came back, and I couldn’t look at it, so I just gave it to my husband,’ recalled Lisa.
‘I was watching him as he was looking at it.
‘Then he just suddenly looked at me and he said, “pregnant”, and I thought, “what?” I just grabbed it off him and we couldn’t believe it.
‘Not only did it work, but one of the embryos randomly split into two, so I ended up having triplets at 41 with identical twin boys, and then a little girl.’
Lisa gave birth to triplets – two identical boys and one girl (Picture: Collect/PA Real Life)
Lisa and her husband, Rob, were overjoyed when they got the news (Picture: Collect/PA Real Life))
Lisa credits the success of the fifth round to a mindset shift — but getting to the point that she could feel truly positive about her fertility journey was an uphill battle.
‘It’s such a lonely, private experience,’ she said.
‘I felt like there was nobody I could talk to about it… and I just felt desperate and depressed.
‘Having to see all my friends have families, going to social events with families there and babies there, and people asking you about it all the time, you just feel so inadequate.
‘You think, “Why are you not capable of this? Everybody else can do it”. And it’s just heartbreaking because you want it so much and it’s completely out of your control.’
For Lisa, shifting her mindset proved to be the ‘missing link’ (Picture: Collect/PA Real Life)
Filling 18 bottles was overwhelming at first, but they embraced it (Picture: Collect/PA Real Life))
Despite feeling this way, Lisa never showed her true feelings to her friends and family.
‘I just found that outwardly, I was putting on this mask — like everything’s fine and cheery, happy — and then so often I would just go home and cry,’ she said.
Lisa found adjusting her mindset helped her through some of her darkest days.
‘After nearly 10 years of trying to get pregnant, I’d lost the faith inside,’ Lisa explained.
‘I could hear the mental chatter of, “This isn’t going to happen to me, everyone else gets pregnant except me, there’s something wrong with me, that’s not going to work”.
‘It hit me like a ton of bricks that my outward was not in line with my inward.’
Lisa began working on her mindset by implementing ‘tools’ in her daily life, such as visualising herself pregnant — and she began to feel differently about things.
‘Now, we’ve got three lovely, happy, healthy children and we’re so lucky, it’s all been worth it,’ she said.
Now, Lisa has written a book about her fertility journey (Picture: Collect/PA Real Life)
Inspired by her own experience, Lisa has written a book called Fertility: Mindset And Meltdowns, to provide an insight into her unique journey.
She hopes her book will help to give other women the emotional support and tools they need so they do not feel alone or ‘suffer in silence’ like she did.
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‘I just felt desperate and depressed.’